San Antonio Heights set to celebrate 125 years as an independent community

San Antonio Heights, by almost any definition, is a world by itself, a quiet hillside community hemmed in on three sides by the crush of suburbia.

Residents of the unincorporated area north of Upland have struggled resolutely to remain independent for a long time - 125 years, to be exact.

You don't dare call it "Upland" (though it shares schools, ZIP code and other services with its neighbor). Folks there hold a New England-style town hall each year to discuss issues and solve problems. And the moment something happens there, everyone knows it due to its expansive email network.

This bastion of independence launches a year-long schedule of events on Sunday to celebrate its quasquicentennial - that's 125 years - with a talk on its history.

The program has been arranged by Megan Hutter, whose history in the community only dates back about a decade but who has immersed herself in its interesting past.

She'll tell you San Antonio Heights technically came into existence on June 16, 1887. Charles Frankish, the man who took over developing Ontario colony lands from George Chaffey, formally filed a plot plan for the foothills on that day.

And if you look at a map of the Heights, you'll see it's not arranged with the usual grid of straight tract streets.

Hutter calls the Heights' design "curves and circles," streets arrayed in full and half circles along which lots were sold by Frankish and his partner, H.L. McNeil of Los Angeles.

And while certainly that was the birth of the community, I'd say the Heights came of age as March 13, 1906.

That's when Ontario was fighting desperately to stop the formation of the city of Upland from the Santa Fe tracks north to the mountain slopes. On the other hand, San Antonio Heights folks didn't want anything to do with either combatant.

It turned out that Upland won the cityhood war, but San Antonio Heights did win a battle.

A petition directed to the Board of Supervisors from Heights' landowners objected to being part of the new city. As a result, the board set the northern boundary of Upland (at least east of San Antonio Avenue) as 24th Street, where it remains more than a century later.

Hutter was mentored by the late Lola Lowe, a fascinating woman who worked tirelessly in researching the history of the region before her death in late 2010. Lowe encouraged Hutter to continue her research, leading to her work on an upcoming book on the Heights for Arcadia Publishing Co.

Hutter will tell you she loves following the mysteries of the Heights and some of the odd discoveries she's come across.

One of them is the grave of T.G. Smith of Pomona, who was buried in the Heights after his death in 1883.

The body of Smith was reportedly later moved to Bellevue Cemetery in Ontario, but his tombstone stayed put.

While Hutter was trying to find out more about Smith, Upland's Cooper Museum one day received out of the blue two photos of the stone taken in 1939 and 1955 in the Heights.

Who Smith was, however, remains mostly an unknown.

In another search, Hutter found some historic pictures following a chance phone call to Rancho Cucamonga City Hall.

She had read a story of a Victorian house, once on the site of the closed Albertsons market on Euclid, that was to be moved by the developer of a neighborhood in Etiwanda making it the focal point of the new Victoria development.

However, Hutter said, nobody could tell her what ever happened to the house, which never made it to Victoria.

She called the Planning Department in Rancho Cucamonga and spoke to a startled Mayuko Nakajima there.

Nakajima was shocked because as she talked to Hutter on the phone, she looked down and discovered a folder on her desk with photos of the Victorian. And she had no explanation how it appeared on her desk at that moment.

Hutter got copies of the photos and learned the developer chose not to move the Heights' house to Victoria. The house had been burned to the ground as part of a training exercise for the fire department.

Hutter, whose interests really focus on subjects like electricity and engineering, says electric power has had a key role in the Heights.

She cites the power generated by the historic hydroelectric plant in nearby San Antonio Canyon that was once part of the nation's longest power transmission system. Earl Richardson, inventor of the first successful electric iron - the Hotpoint - spent some of his years in San Antonio Heights.

Sunday's free talk is at 4 p.m. at The Garage, the lower building on the grounds of Life Bible Fellowship church, 2626 N. Euclid Ave.

Seating is limited. To reserve a seat, RSVP to the Heights message phone at 909-638-1673.